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Granny's Fixit: An Ozarks Guide to Healing the Body and Soul
Runtime 50 min Winner 2022 Critics' Choice, Atlanta Fringe Dawn grew up in a town very much like Mayberry. Her Grandpa was a county official who worked at the courthouse. There was a town drunk, a Barney, and a town doctor who made his own medicines. When Doc Threadgill wasn't available, he would defer to an older native, a granny woman. Granny women were healers/midwives/seers found in rural Appalachia and the Ozarks. Grannywomen ministered to women especially. As a little girl, Dawn knew one. She finds these women fascinating. We all know, or we should, that women's stories have often been excluded from history. Women, especially older women, are treated as if we are invisible. Well...Dawn, who is in her crone years, thinks we have something to say....She does anyway and this show celebrates the crone, the grannywoman and brings her out of the holler and into the light! Combining several historic granny women into one character, to tell a story of all women in a solo show that features original and historic, music, spoken word, comedy, and images to transport audiences to the place she calls home. |
Atlanta Fringe said:
"...she's an incredible storyteller, but OMG that singing voice! Have you heard this singing voice? She is MESMERIZING, especially if you're a fan of roots/folk traditions, and her songs carry weight and wisdom that seem to come from deep in the soil."
"I felt like I had just walked into [Granny's] house and was given something delicious and got totally lost in her story. The music was beautiful and totally transported me to those mountains. I was genuinely subconsciously worried that mosquitos were gonna start biting me."
"...she's an incredible storyteller, but OMG that singing voice! Have you heard this singing voice? She is MESMERIZING, especially if you're a fan of roots/folk traditions, and her songs carry weight and wisdom that seem to come from deep in the soil."
"I felt like I had just walked into [Granny's] house and was given something delicious and got totally lost in her story. The music was beautiful and totally transported me to those mountains. I was genuinely subconsciously worried that mosquitos were gonna start biting me."
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The Vicious Hillbilly or Dating in the Deep South, a tale of woe in story and song
Runtime 55 min Winner 2020 National Artist of the Year, St. Louis Fringe Have you tried online dating? In the South? As a progressive woman? It’s brutal. It’s depressing. It’s soul-sucking. Driving down the road one day, trying to decide on the order of songs for her CD, The Vicious Hillbilly, she realized that the CD was a chronicle of her pathetic love life via online dating as a mature, progressive, educated hillbilly girl living in the South. She fashioned her experiences into a solo show, a laugh-out-loud comedy; the show combines original songs, stick figures, and stories that features ten lessons (and one bonus!). Come share in her discovery of who she is, what she wants, and that love is her divine right. She has performed this show for over eight years at theatres and festivals including: Cincy Fringe, Atlanta Fringe, St. Louis Fringe, Louisville Fringe, Greensboro Fringe, Southeastern Theatre Conference Fringe, and Nashville Women's Work. |
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Cincinnati CityBeat said:
"Larsen could be your closest friend, sitting in your kitchen, humming along to Patsy Cline and sipping moonshine from a teacup as she spins you a yarn about looking for love."
"Larsen could be your closest friend, sitting in your kitchen, humming along to Patsy Cline and sipping moonshine from a teacup as she spins you a yarn about looking for love."
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Corn Under Canvas: An Evening with a Tent Show Actress
Runtime 55 min South Carolina Artist of Note USC-Aiken Show 2021. Maxine Lacey and her family traveled with the Bisbee Comedians tent show in rural western Kentucky and western and middle Tennessee from 1940-1965. She starred in many lead roles doing twenty or so small towns per season. These traveling tent shows presented popular melodrama, and most especially Toby shows, which featured a stock character named Toby. The star of the show, Toby was a freckled faced rube who with his friends and family outwitted the evil city slickers. For much of the first half of the 20th century tent shows were the main source of entertainment for millions of rural Americans and the Toby character became an archetype leading to other characters like Andy Griffith. The role of Susie, Toby's smarter than she looks girlfriend, was one of Maxine's favorite roles. Dawn brings Maxine to life as she chronicles life on the road with a tent show. Dawn performed this show with the Kentucky Humanities Council's Telling Kentucky's Story Chautauqua program for five years, as well as all over rural Tennessee, South Carolina, and southern Illinois for special events. |
